


On A Winter's Day (California Dreamin')

by tzigane



Series: A Little Dream of Me [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Hurt Derek, It Should Have Been Stiles, M/M, POV Peter Hale, Peter Regrets Not Biting Stiles, Peter has Regrets, These Tags Make Us Laugh. It's a Sickness. Obviously., Why Scott? Why?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 07:35:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5657953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzigane/pseuds/tzigane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something with Derek wasn't right. It was vaguely familiar, and equally beyond his reach because Talia had lacked any compunction whatsoever when it came to taking away memories she felt Peter didn't need.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On A Winter's Day (California Dreamin')

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yoiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yoiko/gifts).



> So long as you're past season 4, spoilers shouldn't be an issue? Uh. Yeah. That's about it.

In the end, it all came down to the fact that Derek was all he had left.

Yes, Peter Hale had killed his niece for her power. Yes, he had gone mad with that power. Yes, he had always been manipulative, good at lying, and without a doubt trouble waiting to happen.

That didn't mean he didn't love his nephew.... in his own way. They were bodies in orbit, always had been. Peter had been Talia's baby brother, closer in age to Laura than either of them had been to Derek, but he remembered his sister coming home, all smiles and open arms, telling them that there would be a baby soon. They'd already known, of course, those old enough to recognize the scent on her, and Peter had found it fascinating. He had murmured quiet greetings to her belly while sitting at Talia's feet, been fascinated to watch as Derek blossomed and grew, as Talia became awkward with the weight of her third child. Peter had been too young to care with Patrick and too peeved that he might have to share attention with Laura.

Derek had been different.

Derek had also been completely unprepared to stand on his own, or to be alpha, and that was a fact. He had been cocky by the time he was in high school, yes, but he was never supposed to be the one who led the pack. Derek was the third child, second boy, and honestly, everyone knew that Laura would succeed Talia when the time came, just as Talia had succeeded their mother. The Hale family had been matrilineal for generations -- even if Peter had wanted the power, it was never meant to come to him.

It should never have been his, no matter how much he wanted it.

So yes. He had done bad things. He had made bad calls. In all honesty, he thought he had the right to most of them. Being burned alive and spending six years in a catatonic state tended to do that to a man, never mind all of the other general horrors. Using a banshee to resurrect himself during the Worm Moon certainly didn't say a great deal for his mental stability. Well. A great many things didn't actually imply that he was mentally stable, and there was no point in arguing that he was. It would be ridiculous.

The entire point of it was.... Derek was what he had left. Not his sister, who burned to death shielding Patrick and Thomas, both of whom had been born human; not Peter's father, who had his hand on Peter's pregnant wife; not Will nor Josef nor Gretel nor Ryan.

They were all gone, and Derek was all he had left, Derek, an absent Cora, a daughter he had never known, and a bunch of snot-nosed brats with a ridiculously moral Alpha, and...

Something with Derek wasn't right. It was vaguely familiar, and equally beyond his reach because Talia had lacked any compunction whatsoever when it came to taking away memories she felt Peter didn't need.

There was something deeply, horribly wrong, and Peter didn't know how to fix it.

That left him very few options, so he did the only thing he could do.

He conspired with a bitch whose throat he had sliced open because she was the one who had done whatever was destroying his nephew. If there was an answer, that was where he would find it, and Peter was too practical to leave that stone unturned.

So.

Derek became weaker, the Dead Pool became larger, the violence in Beacon Hills escalated, and Peter still didn't have an answer. Maybe there wasn't an answer.

God, he hoped there was an answer.

Various possible paths spiraled out before him, growing steadily more knotted, more snarled, and while Peter certainly held a deep enjoyment of convoluted plotlines, his life should not be so fucking incomprehensibly _difficult_.

And yet.

So he crawled along the spidery threads and laid his own web in various directions -- with Kate, with Malia, with Braeden, with _Stiles_.

It was such a shame that he'd been half-mad with power and anger that night in the Preserve. Stiles would have made a beautiful wolf, efficient, ruthless, smart. Stiles was a good match, whether for Peter (who didn't mind robbing the cradle) or Derek (because Peter could smell the tension between them and he knew exactly what it was.) The fact that he had bitten Scott McCall, who had become a _True Alpha_ when he was such a complete and utter moron, was quite possibly one of the most irritating things that ever could have happened (although Peter did harbor some pride about it -- after all, he was not inclined to deny himself any sort of credit, and the rarity of a True Alpha was definitely something for which he would take credit even if he seriously regretted not making better choices.)

He'd left Derek with Stiles and the wee baby wolf that idiot McCall had bitten, let Braeden drive the lot of them, and he had continued to try and sway Malia in the direction he desired.

It was a long trip to Tezcatlipoca, made more so by the annoying music his daughter (and god, did he hold that against Talia) insisted on playing as though Peter didn't know it was what Stiles had told her to do. On the one hand, that was deeply irritating. On the other hand, his daughter was smart enough to know when someone made a damned good suggestion and to take it. That was all right. It gave him more time to think about what he needed to do.

There was no question that he had plans. Of course he had plans, plans based on Kate's plans, plans of his own, and everything seemed to be falling into place. Seemed to be.... but Peter was long accustomed to all of the ways thing tended to fuck up. He'd been on edge for a while, and he was expecting everything to go to hell. He just hoped that he could ride it out, and that when things came to an end, there would be an answer.

He had told her from the start that he wanted to be an alpha again. Kate Argent wouldn't have accepted the entire truth (that he needed to save Derek when she was trying so desperately to kill him -- he wasn't stupid enough to tell her everything), and so he had given her a partial one: that he was going to kill Scott McCall to gain back his family's power. There were a lot of reasons for that, reasons he could outline in neat Helvetica with bullet points if she wanted. The crazy bitch seemed to be okay with the answers he gave her, and so he didn't bother with the others, definitely not bothering to tell the truth, the main plan, the thing he'd wanted all along. No one would believe it, anyway, would think that he might want to save Derek. Save his family.

Save one of the few things he had left.

They spun through the dust and parked outside of La Iglesia, coming to a sharp stop. He turned to look at Malia, and that was when it happened.

He saw it from the corner of his eye, the lurking bulk of Kate's Berserker just as Derek threw open the van door, and he knew.

Peter knew.

No matter how fast he was, it wouldn't be fast enough. He had wanted to find out what Kate had done. He had wanted to reverse it. He had wanted Derek to live, even if only so that Peter could taunt him and hold his continued survival over his head.

The smell of the blood was sharp, thick. Horrible, and he skidded to a stop, watched as Braeden shot then jacked a round into the chamber, again, again, again. Fifteen rounds, and he knew she had to be saving that last shot... just in case. A woman like that never fired the last shot until she was going down, and the Berserker ran away from it. She dropped to her knees beside Derek, and all Peter could do was look. Stiles stood even closer than Peter, and the expression on his face was simultaneously horrified and revealed a complete inability to look away from the sight. He remembered overhearing a conversation about Stiles's squeamishness once. Apparently, being taken over by an evil fox demon had lessened that to a rather impressive extent.

Somehow Peter managed not to stutter when he stood there, sick to his core. "How bad is it?" He didn't want to ask, couldn't hear his own voice. He didn't want to know. He already knew.

Oh, god. He already knew. 

"I'm fine, I'm fine." Lies. All lies, the lubdublubdub of his heart skipping wildly, the slick of blood over those teeth Peter had teased him about until he was uncomfortable and wouldn't smile if Peter happened to be nearby. "Just get to Scott. Just find him. We'll be right behind you. Go."

No.

No.

Derek panted, a harsh breath that skittered between his lips. "Go!"

He did.

He did, but he could still hear Derek behind him, knew that Stiles was still standing there, knew that the ridiculous boy didn't want to leave Peter's nephew.

He knew a lot of things.

He knew Derek was dying.

He knew that he was actually going to kill Scott McCall, for so very many reasons. 

"Hey. Hey. Save him." Said to Stiles, and it made Peter even angrier. He could hear Stiles stumbling towards the opening that led deeper inside, could hear him stop and look back, long and hard.

Peter should have bitten him, shouldn't have gone for the easier prey. He should have, and it was all far too late.

Far too late, and so there was only one option now. One way to go as he ran deeper into La Iglesia, concentrating on the sounds and the scents that would lead him to Scott McCall, Berserker or not.

There was only one way to finish.

There _would_ be a Hale Alpha again.

Come hell or high water.

No matter what he had to do to make it happen.


End file.
